A few notes about the site mechanics
A few notes about the community
If English is not your first language, don't let that make you afraid to post or comment. You can get English help on Discussion- or Main-level posts by sending a PM to one of the following users (use the "send message" link on the upper right of their user page). Either put the text of the post in the PM, or just say that you'd like English help and you'll get a response with an email address.
* Normal_Anomaly
* Randaly
* shokwave
* Barry Cotter
A note for theists: you will find the Less Wrong community to be predominantly atheist, though not completely so, and most of us are genuinely respectful of religious people who keep the usual community norms. It's worth saying that we might think religion is off-topic in some places where you think it's on-topic, so be thoughtful about where and how you start explicitly talking about it; some of us are happy to talk about religion, some of us aren't interested. Bear in mind that many of us really, truly have given full consideration to theistic claims and found them to be false, so starting with the most common arguments is pretty likely just to annoy people. Anyhow, it's absolutely OK to mention that you're religious in your welcome post and to invite a discussion there.
A list of some posts that are pretty awesome
I recommend the major sequences to everybody, but I realize how daunting they look at first. So for purposes of immediate gratification, the following posts are particularly interesting/illuminating/provocative and don't require any previous reading:
- Your Intuitions are Not Magic
- The Apologist and the Revolutionary
- How to Convince Me that 2 + 2 = 3
- Lawful Uncertainty
- The Planning Fallacy
- Scope Insensitivity
- The Allais Paradox (with two followups)
- We Change Our Minds Less Often Than We Think
- The Least Convenient Possible World
- The Third Alternative
- The Domain of Your Utility Function
- Newcomb's Problem and Regret of Rationality
- The True Prisoner's Dilemma
- The Tragedy of Group Selectionism
- Policy Debates Should Not Appear One-Sided
- That Alien Message
More suggestions are welcome! Or just check out the top-rated posts from the history of Less Wrong. Most posts at +50 or more are well worth your time.
Welcome to Less Wrong, and we look forward to hearing from you throughout the site.
(Note from orthonormal: MBlume and other contributors wrote the original version of this welcome message, and I've stolen heavily from it.)
Hi, I'm Josh. I found this site by way of HPMOR more than half a year ago, but just now got around to making an account. I hadn't seen any reason to until I actually had something to add to a conversation. After registering and leaving a few comments here and there, i figured i may as well introduce myself.
Im 17 years old and trying to narrow down what to do with my life. My long term goal, much like most patrons to this site, is to do as much as i can to aid the development of FAI. Im smarter than the vast majority of people, but i doubt that im anywhere near intelligent enough to add directly to the project, so the issue becomes finding a career that pays enough to allow large donations while also satisfying short term needs and pressures, (most of which are related to serving my ego which is of an astronomical size).
Im generally a slacker due to akrasia, with a C average for my first two years of high school, despite almost straight A's on exams ( ive raised it to a B average after finding Less Wrong, but im still putting off doing my homework even at this moment).
I spend a good deal of time trying to figure ways to introduce rationality to my friends and relatives, but without much luck. any advice on the issue would be helpful, but i think that question would be more appropriate for an open thread or discussion.
I'm motivated on the most basic level by the fact that something is horribly wrong with the world when it doesn't have to be. If i could sum up my life in any one purpose it would be ensuring that death is banished from the world never to touch mankind again. This is the same sentiment that led to the creation of this community and i will try to offer as much as i can.
Welcome, Josh! It sounds like you're in a similar place to my brother right now, with similar interests. He goes by zephyrianr on LW, maybe you could send him a message if you're interesting in talking about these issues. Especially when I read your phrase: "If i could sum up my life in any one purpose it would be ensuring that death is banished from the world never to touch mankind again," I think you two would get along well.